Gathering.

It's taken me a while to process what that day meant to me.  At first, it's hard to believe that an entire year has gone by.  I feel almost guilty that I've lived so much since you chose not to.  I wonder what you would think of me now--graduated, moving across the country.  I wish there were some way to show you all of the things I've done; sometimes all I want is to hear your praise, to listen to you tell me how beautiful you think I am.  Whose lap do I sit in now?  You were the only person who didn't think I've gotten too old.  A whole year, but it still hurts like it did 52 weeks ago.  What will next year be like?  What happens after five years?  Ten?  Fifty?

What if I forget?  
 
How is Jason?  We miss him, too.  That still hurts, too.  I want him back here with us, too.

What is it about death that is so troublesome? My own death doesn't bother me, just the death of everyone else. 

Hopelessness.

I do everything by myself.  And really, I've done a lot.  But I don't want to anymore.

So how do I get up for work in the morning now?

Tonight.

I am terrified. In an exciting, exhilarating, exhausting
kind of way.
Sometimes the nagging, needful, necessary
details take over.
I forget the adventurous, aspiring, animated
self I am.
Fears of broken, beaten, battered
dreams consume me.
But then I see the vivid, vital, voracious
opportunities becoming real.
My sleepy, stunning, sublime
dreams take over.

Apathy-the panacea.

What am I going to tell him? My greatest fear, I've come to realize, isn't that he will be heartbroken. It is that he won't. Which begs more questions--why do I care so much that he cares so much? What am I really searching for? What am I trying to substitute?

I want to be missed. I want to know that I didn't waste my time here-that I really, truly matter to someone. That a person will say, "I knew this girl once..." and it will end the way I always wanted it to.

But why?


And furthermore, should I marry him? Is someone out there going to be so absolutely crazy for me that he won't hesitate in the slightest to spend the rest of his life with me? Does he feel that way?

Rocket science.

When you are kid, adults are always telling you that life isn't fair. The real world is terrible, embrace your youth. Being an adult is awful--paying bills, raising children, working 9 to 5, praying your marriage isn't in the bad 50%.

Well. Life isn't fair. If you believe all of that. Sometimes, at the heart of our suffering, we like to think that we have been served some great injustice by the universes.

But every bad thing that happens generates good. We're just programmed not to notice it. If you can stop wallowing in self-pity, however, you do. And then you have comfort when things seem bad--you know that it isn't the end. You have something good to look forward to--a surprise. Usually, a blessing. All actions have an equal and opposite reaction--your science teacher was smarter than you thought.

Heart Strings

I don't believe in soulmates. But I do believe that there are those rare people in your life who can tug at your heart no matter how far the distance between the spots where you each watch the moon.
Sometimes, you meet someone, and your love for them consumes you. Your thoughts crowd out the daily processes churning in your head. A picture, in your mind, never fades.

And years later, after the "SEPARATION", after thousands and millions of silent minutes in the space connecting your telephones, and after dust accumulates in the box where "you both", "you as one", "you couple", resides, the same feeling has not gone away. The most gentle, nagging sense of love.

You see, you can't leave a soulmate. But you can leave one of these people, equipped with the fearsome comfort of knowing someone, someday, will tug harder.

It's No Suprise I Won't Be Here Tomorrow

A few months ago, I had everything I wanted.

But then, things change. Your boss comes down hard on you and you realize your job is not satisfying your intellectual and emotional needs.

Your seemingly good friend destroys the relationship of you and your other friends by allowing rumors to circulate that let you take the fall for imagined actions while he runs off with your best friend's girlfriend. Then you realize you don't really have many friends at all. Because now, even though all the cards have been turned, and all of the fallout has settled, they won't make even the slightest effort to see you.

Your home that was all you had left to look forward to--its warmth and quiet and cleanliness--becomes violated with assholes who think they live in a frat house. Now even sleep at night is denied to you.

Why am I still here? I have no reason to be here. I can't get higher education. I am not meeting any potential loves. My friends are non-existent. Am I here for the weather? Because it's easy?

It won't be much longer. Soon, I will be gone. It's my time to leave--this town has nothing left to offer me. In fact, I have to believe that all of these events recently are the universe's way of yelling at me to do something better with myself. For myself.

Walla Walla, I promise you I will return. After I've done the things I want to do and can't do here.

After my PhD. After experience in a job in my field. After starting a family. After enjoying my 20s.

Assignment.

When he walks into a room, he welcomes everyone with a beaming smile (D). He doesn't turn away in embarrassment when I greet strangers on the street (E,17). He is respectable (E,6), and goofy in a quiet way (D), and when he tells you he will do something he not only means it but he gets it done (E,5). He likes the planning part of a vacation more than the actual going on vacation part, and when we get to the destination it's hilarious how we throw out all our plans for some entirely different, random activities instead (D). He never, ever yells (E,4). He is patient (E,6), and kind (E,7), and he makes sure he explains things to me in very simple terms (D). He holds his ground (E,10), and he doesn't put up with my shit (E,18), and he doesn't resent me for not putting up with his (E,8). He forgets why he was angry, like I do (D). He picks his battles carefully (E,9), and is fiscally responsible (E,3). He's clean and tidy (D) but knows when it's ok to just throw the clothes on the floor and leave the dishes in the sink for tomorrow (E,13). He holds off on the sappy stuff most of the time (D), but shows his affection through touch and small gestures nearly all of the time (E,12). When times are hard, and things are really tough, and luck is nowhere to be found, he still finds some good to hang on to and offers some encouragement (E,11). I am his one and only, he doesn't fear what it means to make a commitment and keep it (E,1). He's educated and somewhat sophisticated and reads the newspaper (E,14) and can keep the plants alive because I sure as hell can't (D). There is no hesistation to play in mud puddles, or stop by the park to swing, or to stand in the rain and gawk at lightening (E,16). He can cook (D), but doesn't mind letting me do it most nights (D). Family is of the upmost importance (E,2), his relationship with his own is strong as well as his desire to have and nourish his own (E,2). He takes care of me, and he protects me (E,15). He is ambitious at work but doesn't make it his life (E,17).

When Silence Makes a Sound

Today, I almost heard a mime speak (for a Klondike bar). It was mildly upsetting--I closed my browser. It seems like a ridiculous reaction, but there are some things that I would like to think always stay the same. Like rain on Christmas if you live in Seattle. Or corndogs causing stomachaches. Or giggling during the fifth grade sex education "this is a penis" talk. Or mimes not talking. Really, I have gone 22 years...I want to go my whole life never hearing a mime make a peep. It's just not what they do!

Of course, now that I write this absolutely absurd blog, I will fall in love with a mime tomorrow, and one day he will come home from work and forget to take his makeup off and change and I will turn around and he will say hello and my whole delusional world about mimes not talking will be shattered.

Knock on wood.

The Sound of Silence

Sometimes there are so many things that I want to say that I have nothing to say at all.

In bits and pieces, I may have told the almost complete story of my grandpa. Or rather, my grandpa's death. But what I would really like is to meet someone with whom I feel comfortable sharing the whole story. Really, it's not a matter of comfort, but more intimacy. It is a story you share while lying with someone in bed, a rainy, lazy Sunday. Some things we can only share once; we have laid him to rest but it seems that the rest of us are left restless.

Singing in the Rain

The tap, tap, tap times out a rhythm soothing. It muddies the thoughts in my head. The ping, ping, ping pools the every perhaps; the drip, drip, drip drives the maybes and should'ves over the mind's brim. Splosh, Splosh, Splosh seduces wayward insights, leaving the corners empty and dim in the yellow lights. Pitter, pitter, pitter plays memories in my head, dusting off yesterdays. Erasing the todays, which lately have made the yesterdays not so bad, and the tomorrows dreadful.

Parsing words.

Selfish: Wanting to believe you are the only one who endures suffering.
Ignorant: Believing you ARE the only one who endures suffering.